Digimarc Desktop Search Tool for Digital Photos : Digimarc today announced the public beta of Digimarc Image Search, an innovative desktop search tool designed for the rapidly growing digital photography market. The free tool, downloadable from Digimarc’s website and works in conjunction with desktop search tools such as Google, MSN and Yahoo, enhancing the image search capabilities of these tools. Current tools have limited image search capabilities, typically looking for the file name in the header of an image, which can be easily changed or forgotten. Most professional and many consumer photographs are distributed today in digital form with an extensive array of associated information or “metadata” carried within the image files.

Innovative Desktop search tool
Digimarc Image Search works with and extends existing desktop search tools by enabling users to more quickly and effectively find images stored on a computer based on such information or "metadata" embedded into digital images, including keywords, copyright information and digital rights data; and identify image copyright holders and facilitate image licensing by accessing Internet services, where available, that connect to an image owner’s website or Digimarc's image registry, which is available to users of Digimarc MyPictureMarc and ImageBridge digital watermarking software. This beta release supports web updates for images from the Corbis stock photography library and for all other images that use Digimarc digital watermarking products.

Desktop Search for imaging professionals
"With the release of the Image Search tool, Digimarc once again leads the industry by harnessing cutting-edge technology for use by imaging professionals and amateurs alike," said Jeff Sedlik, past president of the Advertising Photographers of America and professional photographer. "Digimarc Image Search provides photographers and their clients everywhere with a powerful tool for finding and managing the pictures they need, when they need them." According to a report by Lyra Research featured in Photo Marketing Magazine, more than 80 billion digital photographs were estimated to have been taken in 2004. In 2005, IDC predicts that the number of digital images captured, shared and printed will grow by 35%.

Finding and organizing images
"Given this increasing volume of digital photos, consumers and professionals alike face the growing challenge of finding and organizing the images on their PCs and office networks," said J. Scott Carr, president, Digimarc Watermarking solutions. "Our new image search tool extends the power and features of desktop search offerings from Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo!, enabling them to find images more effectively using metadata and watermark information."

Digimarc software - Embedded digital watermarks
Digital photography is often digitally watermarked by its owners using Digimarc software for a variety of purposes, including copyright protection, facilitation of licensing, and the monitoring of Internet marketing programs. The Digimarc software enables users to embed an imperceptible digital watermark that identifies the image’s owner and registers that image in the Digimarc online registry. For images with embedded digital watermarks, Digimarc Image Search can retrieve current and dynamic information about the pictures from Internet resources; for example, identification of the owner of rights to facilitate licensing or additional keywords to improve search results. Digimarc Image Search Beta is available now as a free download at the Digimarc website.

About Digimarc
Digimarc Corporation, based in Beaverton, Oregon, is a leading supplier of secure media solutions used in a wide range of security, identification and digital media content applications. Digimarc provides products and services that enable production of more than 60 million personal identification documents, including two-thirds of U.S. driver licenses and IDs for more than 20 countries. Digimarc's digital watermarking technology provides a persistent digital identity for various media content and is used to enhance the security of financial documents, identity documents and digital images, and support other media rights management applications.